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ABSTRACT: Gravestone historians commonly have suggested that the symbols carved into grave markers reflect changing attitudes toward death, and particularly speak to the communal religious beliefs of the era. In one Connecticut Western Reserve county of the nineteenth century, however, this does not appear to be the case. Instead, the gravestones of Geauga county reveal how the curious parallelism of religiosity and iconography might be misinterpreted, and how numerous forces of "secular static" necessarily intervene between theology and stone. By uniting iconography with church records, personal letters, a diary, and a compiled listing of deaths in the region, a multifaceted understanding of gravestones and mortuary ideology is sought. Community involvement, material culture, the frontier setting, and personal emotions all are inextricably bound up in this study of early Ohio gravestones, religion, and death.

Life in the Stones:

Gravestones of Geauga county, Ohio, 1800-1825

When his wife died in 1823, Asahel Barnes surely reflected on his new life in the frontier. He had been urged by friends and family not to go; they called him crazy for contemplating such a perilous remove particularly in 1814, a time of war. Still, he and his wife Patty had packed up their possessions and five young children and set forth in September. On the journey they had found both unexpected aid and instant communities of friends, with Quakers in Pennsylvania helping their team over the western mountain passes and a former Connecticut neighbor, Ephraim Cook, helping them along the final nine miles to Burton. But they also met with death, as Judge Kirtland's wife died in the house just across the street on the night they passed through Harrisburg. Perhaps an unhappy accident of fate, the Kirtlands had not only resided in the Geauga county town where the Barnes would settle, but also had emigrated from Wallingford, Connecticut, a town adjacent to the Barnes' original home of East Haven. It was a doleful omen perhaps; death awaited them on the frontier.

When we seek, then, to approach the meanings within Mrs. Barnes' gravestone -- the same stone type, shape, and lettering as that of her son three years earlier -- we can begin to gain a better sense of the meanings within the stone: that is, the meanings for the community and family who erected it. [see plate 2] Apparently from the same stone quarry and carved by the same stonecarver, this "mute" marker is imbued with more than material factors. Many contextual factors are involved: her son Charles' death, Mrs. Kirtland's demise, the warnings of a perilous frontier, the difficult journey and life in a new region, and the small but familiar community which surrounded the emotions. With these as reference points, the gravestone's willow-and-urn design - so frustrating to iconographic analysis and so devoid of the semiotic richness and theological parallels found in earlier generations of American gravestones - can gather a new semblance of meaning, at least for this instance of death. The death of Patty Barnes, whom the county history remembers as "a woman of fine social and intellectual qualities" and whose "children's love was great for her," offers testimony to these many personal meanings, communal forces, and emotions, even as they cannot be not read through the gravestone's iconographic design. An epitaph, always a welcomed resource in such studies but also a highly-stylized form, here helps to confirm the community and personal story revealed. It reads: "Lo here the mortal body lies / Of one to us most dear / A wife, a friend, and Mother dies / Come drop with us a tear."

Gravestone studies, and specifically iconographic analysis, first gained historical credence in the 1960s with such pioneers as Allan Ludwig, who came to the field with an art historical background, and the pair of James Deetz and Edwin Dethlefsen, primarily archeologists by training. Intrigued by the notion of orderly stylistic change over time, this small vanguard found the ample and dated source materials of gravestones suggestive of greater changes in New England "mortuary ideology," or attitudes toward death, during the colonial period. Though these gravestone studies focused almost exclusively upon New England stones, in the 1960s and 1970s a multidisciplinary interplay arose that included such disparate fields as psychology, religion, anthropology, folklore, art history, and archeology. A panoply of perspectives and aims emerged: witnessing colonial folk art, connecting stones with religious views, understanding the nascent stonecarving industry, and noting the trading patterns, social stratification, and medical practices in the era. These efforts were grounded not in the stones' genealogical data, which previously had been the primary use of gravemarkers, but instead merged the iconographic and epigrammatic evidence on the stones with probate records, account books, and other cultural and religious testimony. Incorporating symbol and epitaphs thus enabled academics to make statements about New England society and its mortuary ideology in the absence of direct personal data, an opportunity relished by the new social historians of the 1960s and 1970s.

Ludwig's seminal work, Graven Images: New England Stonecarving and its Symbols, 1650-1815, helps to illustrate the nature of these studies. By analyzing the symbolism of gravemarkers in conjunction with a historico-theoretical study of Puritanism, he found an iconographic tradition that had existed from the outset of Puritan New England which had gradually deepened in meaning and forms from about 1668 until 1815. According to Ludwig, the cause for this enrichment of symbolism was to be found in religious developments: as Puritan elders strengthened theological walls against the intermittent waves of heresy, the increasingly confining principles of Puritanism restrained what he claims as an inherent human need for symbolic expression. Gravestones thus became a template upon which popular pietism could grow and flourish, a truer expression of religious belief than might be reflected in the sermonic or didactic literature of the era.

At the same time, anthropologists James Deetz and Edwin Dethlefsen were noticing what has become the fundamental narrative in gravestone studies: the apparent tri-fold change over time from winged death's heads to cherubs and finally to the urn-and-willow motif. Most important was how they, like Ludwig, explained such gravestone iconography and its gradual evolution as "a clear index of important changes in the religious views of New Englanders." This widely-accepted view suggested that as the sternness of orthodox Puritanism had declined, so too did the fearful portrayals of winged death's heads. In their place had come softer, more uplifting designs of heavenly cherubs and soul effigies, suggestively parallel to the emphasis of the Great Awakening upon man's ultimate ascension into heaven. Epitaphs mirrored this new focus upon surrection, as "here lies John Brown" gradually was replaced by such phraseology as "here lies the body of…" or "here lies what was mortal of…". When later a preponderance of epitaphs began to be inscribed "in memory of…,"as had Charles Barnes', the third and final shift had arisen. Just as the post-revolutionary nation had turned away from religion, gravestones now had purportedly become neither mortal nor immortal symbols, but a means of secularized commemoration. The earlier, vital imagery of death's heads and soul effigies were replaced by bland urns-and-willows, symbols only vaguely connected to the deaths which they memorialized. Witness to a major change in American worldview from religion to secular concerns, burying grounds had become memorial parks, and gravestones lost their animating symbolism.

Historians such as Peter Benes and the team of Dick and Ann Tashjian carried forward this work of confirming and refining the historical understanding of death via gravestones. The major assumption underlying such works was that the stonecarvers' work represented an unconscious articulation of community religion, folklore and mortuary ideology, and that, moreover, the ideology portrayed had changed rather distinctly over time. Using the multitude of ancillary resources that the Tashjians and other scholars had brought together, Peter Benes took the next logical step in this historiographical process: he asserted that not only might seriation and diffusion help reveal the influence of prevailing attitudes upon gravestones, but that "conversely, where documentary evidence of such attitudes has been lost, we might infer prevailing religious opinions by analyzing local headstone preferences."

At least in Geauga county in the early nineteenth century, this methodology does not appear viable. Benes and other gravestone historians might concede the point, but suggest that the periods under study are fundamentally incomparable: that in fact 1675-1800 was a period of vivid connection between the stones and the prevailing religious attitudes, but in the nineteenth century the two became uncoupled, yielding "secularized" gravestones. It may be, however, that this hypothesis does not work for the earlier period. Not only have these gravestone studies relied upon a monolithic, stereotypical version of "Puritanism" to make their claims, but they have proven mere parallelism between religious states (Puritanism - Great Awakening - secularization) and iconographic motifs (death's head - cherub - urn and willow) rather than a unified historical causation or even an evident mutual interaction. Nonetheless, this study does not seek not to repudiate the Ludwig-Tashjian-Benes hypothesis insofar as colonial America is concerned, but rather suggests a new approach and different methods.

Most importantly, the special resources available in Geauga county, Ohio have allowed for a particular melding of gravestone designs with documentary evidence of attitudes toward death, replacing a general correspondence between iconography and mortuary ideology with greater emphasis upon both personal and communal perspectives. The studies of New England, through the compilation of massive data sets and cumulative records of individual stonecarvers, hoped to lay out the semiotic infusions and general shifts that had occurred over time. Lost in this exhaustive search, however, was the community-level experience of death. Though specific areas have been exhaustively researched through gravestone analysis and detailed regional investigations of stonecarvers, the idea of death and the communal impact and meaning represented by gravestones has been curiously divorced from research designs. The reinvigoration of iconography with community and death seems to offer two specific benefits: first, a greater awareness of the emotional factors, personal and communal, through which death is received; and second, a closer understanding of the semiotic meanings which might have been ascribed by the actors themselves.

It was also originally hoped that this study might help lay out the transmission of mortuary ideology to the early nineteenth century frontier. While much of the trans-Appalachian West witnessed the infusion of peoples from many disparate areas, the Connecticut Western Reserve-- of which Geauga county was a part -- was populated largely by settlers from a single cultural milieu, and thankfully one which had been enormously studied by gravestone researchers: southern New England. The "Doppler effect" laid out by Deetz and Dethlefsen, in which patterns of diffusion moved slowly near the initial locus of change but more rapidly as they spread out, might therefore be examined in a similar-yet-distant regional culture, perhaps to confirm or contradict the "law" set forth by Deetz and Dethlefsen. Historical neglect of nineteenth century stones and iconography, however, transformed the focus, and problems with linking the Geauga data to religious trends indicated a greater problem: what could the stones truly reveal, and what range of factors might be involved in their creation? To that end, the question of the Western Reserve's relation to New England - or the early nineteenth century's relation to the eighteenth - came under further question, if ultimately unresolvable through this study.

Finally, standing as it does between 1800 and 1825, this study occupies a unique place in American gravestone studies. The initial date approximates the time in which gravestone iconography lost its alleged vitality and was decoupled with religion, and the latter date precedes the next major period in graveyard studies: the romanticized and individualized commemoration of death characterized by the "rural cemetery movement" of the 1830s and beyond. Though Geauga county may be only tenuously connected with this latter movement, the types of resources mobilized here could certainly be applied with similar aims. By suggesting deficiencies in the prevailing interpretations of gravestone iconography along with different avenues for cultural investigation, it is hoped that the two major eras might be seen as less distinct. By bringing the eighteenth century focus upon gravestones into contact with the nineteenth century focus upon diaries and cemeteries, a more credible and holistic resolution can be hoped for.

As noted above, the gravestones of Geauga county do not by themselves reveal the prevailing mortuary ideology. Even in conjunction with the rich historiographical literature of early New England gravestones, the iconography vested in these stones provides weak indication of attitudes toward death and dying in the frontier Western Reserve. This is not to devalue the usefulness of iconographic analysis or to suggest, in the spirit of pre-Ludwig historians, that the folk art carvings of gravestones represented little more than interesting pictures. Instead it asserts that meaning may be drawn more carefully through the use of ancillary sources specific to the community under investigation. It then may become clear that many causes for iconographic transitions within a community may be postulated, only one of which is an underlying shift in religion.

The cut of a stonecarver's chisel only begins to describe a gravestone. Any such marker must also be imbued with the illness, accident, or violent episode which caused the death, the otherworldly expectations of both victim and bereaved, the funeral which celebrated the life or proclaimed the sorrow, and the burial which brought it to a close. Those who gave the sermon, carried the body, and attended the funeral may be remembered by the actors at least so indelibly as those who built the coffin or decorated the stone. For a historian seeking mortuary ideology, it seems not profitable to neglect such aspects central to the friends and family who erected the monuments. When Geauga county gravestones are viewed through this lens, it appears that they do not conform to some of the important interpretations suggested by the symbols themselves, or even the symbols with epitaphs, of previous gravestone studies. What exactly they do mean as a collective unit is less precise, or perhaps rather is as multiplex as the gravestone experiences themselves: largely directed and influenced by the community and its resources, but each emotionally representative of the person commemorated, his/her life and particular circumstances of death.

Of great importance to the study was the question of representiveness: to what extent could the relatively small number of gravestones be an adequate sampling of the county's gravestones? Though ideally all of the extant markers in the county might have been collected, numbering perhaps ninety or a hundred, this number too would represent only those which had survived the many years of vandals, neglect, and damage from both natural and human sources. As mentioned previously, despite identical obstacles in New England gravestone studies and indeed in any study of primary historical resources, others have averted such stumbling blocks through the marshaling of copious photographs, rubbings, and analyses. Moreover, the primary concern of these accounts was generally not so descriptive of a community as of the gravestones themselves. With a smaller collection of markers and a greater concern for the community interests involved, the question here gains greater significance.

The gravestones collected do seem to provide an adequate sampling of towns, even though the collected stones do not always parallel the proximate population figures.

Table 1: Relationship of 1820 census figures to gravestones studied

TOWNSHIP	1820 census records	% of county	Stones found	% of stones
Auburn	215	5%	2	4%
Bainbridge	199	5%	4	7%
Burton	506	11%	24	44%
Chardon	430	10%	4	7%
Chester	269	6%	4	7%
Claridon	398	9%	3	5%
Hamden	767	17%	0	0%
Batavia	335	8%	6	11%
Newbury	337	8%	0	0%
Parkman	512	12%	4	7%
Thompson	332	8%	0	0%
Troy	102	2%	4	7%
Totals	4411	100%	55	100%

Of course, one should not expect predictable correspondence with population figures alone, for this represents a static figure while deaths are continuous over the time period. Even more significantly, the death rate was not identical throughout the county. Some towns were particularly healthy while others were besieged by illnesses and epidemic diseases. The town of Burton appears to have had a particularly high death rate, subject to waves of pestilence, including erysipelas and puerperal fever in both 1812 and 1814, remittent fever in 1821, and an unspecified epidemic in 1823-24. All of these factors appear to have given Burton a death rate at least twice that of the county as a whole. The academy of the Erie Literary Society, which had operated in Burton since 1806, even closed its doors in 1824 citing the pervasive sickness in Burton as its reason for relocating.

Meanwhile, Hambden had a noted reputation for healthiness, and indeed only four adults and four children were known to have died in the township up to 1818. In addition, a listing of all the 218 deaths found both in researching Geauga gravestones and in historical accounts (included as Appendix B, hereafter referred to as the "compiled-deaths-index") would seem to indicate that only 6% of Geauga deaths occurred in Hambden during this time, just one third of what might be have expected from the town's considerable population. Undoubtedly, then, Hambden may be underrepresented, but perhaps by as few as four stones, 7% of the total, as opposed to nine, or 17%. Similarly, Newbury and Thompson might be devalued by as few as five stones and one stone, respectively, rather than the more considerable numbers suggested by their 1820 populations.

The implications of the sufficiency of this sampling are several. First, the potential contributions of different stonecarvers in the area are correspondingly greater to have been included. If a stonecarver only worked in two towns, for instance, his material might be more likely to be encountered. Second, any regional variations within the county would be more likely to be recognized. For instance, it appears that the gravestones of neighboring Claridon and Huntsburg are exceptionally weighted towards white sandstone designs: six out of nine stones, or 67%, are in this category, whereas the rest of Geauga holds just nine of forty-six, or 20%. Might this correspondence be due to the shared Cuyahoga River and East Branch Reservoir on their common border, allowing ease of transport of gravestones to their towns? Questions such as these may at least be raised. Finally, the recognition of these gravestones as numerically representative of their individual townships also strengthens this study of the gravestones as a county experience. Were it not the case that the county held a real collective meaning to these early residents, then studying gravestones on this basis might prove an ill-selected and relatively random grouping of towns. Yet politics, business, marriages, and personal interrelations make apparent that not only were the towns important focal points in daily and special occasions, but also that the county held significant value as a communal unit. The county framework thus can give useful shape to this study of gravestones, death, and life in the period.

Among the first revelations of the gravestone analysis was the unexpected suggestion of iconographic transition in the era under study. The historiographical background of New England had indicated the withering away of death's heads by the mid-eighteenth century, and the disappearance of soul effigies as the predominant image by at least 1810. The urn-and-willow motif, which typified nineteenth-century gravestone art throughout the United States, should only have grown stronger through the period under question. However, a shift occurred in Geauga county gravestones seems to have occurred approximately 1822.

Table 2: Gravestone iconography in Geauga county, 1800-1825

Gravestone iconography	1800-1821 (25 stones)	1822-1825 (30 stones)
Urn-and-willow motif	36% (9)	10% (3)
Vine-and-leaves	12% (3)	23% (7)
No iconography	40% (10)	57% (17)

The meaning of this shift is curious. The dominant interpretation in gravestone iconography suggests that the substance of the urn-and-willow motif had little emotional or spiritual import, but rather "simply lauded the individual in terms of his worldly achievements," indicating a "secularization of the religion" within the community. But here we have the urn-and-willow designs rapidly supplanted both by vine-and-leaves and stones with no iconography. Any one of four competing possibilities might explain this situation. First, this shift might suggest that the "secularization" trends of the urn-and-willow design were being repudiated, and that a reinvigorated religiosity might be found in the stones. Second, it could imply no change in mortuary ideology, but rather that the three categories (urns-ands-willow, vines-and-leaves, and no iconography) were imbued with the same or similar underlying meaning. Third, it could mean that the symbolism that had previously suggested a particular mortuary ideology had itself changed. And fourth, the iconography could have little to do with underlying belief systems or mortuary ideologies, but rather be a misleading signifier.

Since the prevailing practice in gravestone studies would be to assert or even assume a correspondence between iconography and religiosity, it would perhaps be worthwhile to investigate this question from the outset. Would people of a religious background have distinctive iconographic types setting their views of death apart from others? To begin answering this question, it was necessary to determine which of the fifty-five stones might represent people of a religious background. This determination was founded upon church records, an unpublished personal diary, epitaphs, and secondary accounts of persons active in religion. Two categories of people were considered: first, the deceased individual himself or herself; and second, the person most likely to commission the gravestone - a spouse, parent, or sole adult child. If the deceased or the probable gravestone buyer could be identified as religious, the gravestone was so indicated. [Identifying tags are described in Appendix C.] This classification does not deny that other relatives or friends might have been involved, or that other gravestones represent nonreligion or even irreligion. Instead it allows a suggestive base of identifiably religious persons to begin an analysis of religion and iconography in a very personal and direct sense. Let us then answer the two central questions thus raised: did religion have an identifiable role in gravestone iconography, and if so, was it consistent with evidence from New England?

Utilizing this method, religion did not appear a significant personal factor in either of the two dominant iconographic motifs. Gravestones for people identified as religious utilized urn-and-willow iconography slightly less frequently - and vine-and-leaf iconography slightly more frequently - than for those with no evidence of religion. Still, religiosity did not represent a significant variable. Instead it appears the two motifs were nearly equally favored with respect to religion.

Table 3: Urn-and-willow and vine-and-leaf design by religion and period

Stone design	religious	no evidence of religion
urn-and-willow	19% (3 of 16)	26% (10 of 39)
vine-and leaf	25% (4 of 16)	15% (6 of 39)

Moreover, this distinction held constant over time: the relationship between religion and iconography was as equally indistinguishable before 1822 as after. Thus it appears that, whether viewed through the period in constant terms or analyzed in discrete intervals, the element of religiosity cannot be located in these gravestone designs. Benes's hope to find religious views through iconographic representations does not appear to work in reverse fashion, at least not in nineteenth century Geauga county.

A further setback in this effort to link iconography and religion comes through an examination of the religious-stones-index itself. For some reason, the historical records connect a far lower percentage of stones with "religiosity" after 1821 than before: 13% versus 48%, respectively. This might call into question the accuracy of representation here. Yet unless we assume a bias in the records that makes it harder to identify religiosity after 1821, it would seem to be true that either religious fervor is declining in Geauga county during this period or that this microcosm of gravestones incorrectly mimics such a trend. In either case, it can complicate the view of the urn-and-willow motif. Recall that in New England, the rise of urns-and-willows not only comes during a decline in communal religious fervor, but is supposed to be an indicator of that decline. Here in Geauga county, however, we have an opposite trend: urns-and willows become less prominent during an apparent decline in religiosity.

In contrast to the gravestone grand narrative, Geauga county seems to indicate that a decline in urns-and-willows is part of a trend towards religious declension, rather than its rise being the harbinger of secularization. How could this be? One possibility is that both correlations are true in their respective spheres, and that in some perverse way the dynamics of late eighteenth century New England gravestones hold to quite different standards than those of early nineteenth century Geauga county. Another answer might be that one pattern is correct and the other is illusory. And a final hypothesis might suggest that both correlations are illusory, or rather both viewpoints are too simply constructed to reflect reality.

Yet we still have an iconographic transition that begs explanation. The discussion to this point has been predicated upon gravestone purchasers making a choice of stone design for the deceased that may simply not have existed. If they had to send out of town for a stone, they may have written a letter much like David Foster of Andover, Massachusetts in 1736, which requested two gravestones be made:

Ser pray make; for me Two Gravestones; one for David Foster jeunier of Andover; who died the 22;day of Dec; in the year of our Lord 1736, in the 20th year of his age; the son of David and Lidea Foster of Andover. And one for Lidea Foster, the daughter of David and Lidea Foster of Andover; who died in the 17th year of her age in the year of our Lord 1736 and when they are made; send me word; and I will come and pay you for them.

No element of choice or iconographic finickiness arises in this letter; he wants gravestones with the proper information filled out, nothing more. Might this have been the prevailing situation in Geauga county as well?

Unfortunately no evidence has yet been found in Geauga county either to substantiate or deny this contingency. Though it is altogether unlikely that someone might transport such heavy stones from New England overland in these pre-Erie Canal days, it remains a possibility that people had no control - or interest in control - over the iconographic design of their gravestones. But, of course, even this would not divest the stones of meaning, only of a meaning readily apparent in their iconography.

One important factor might be found in the carvers themselves. The existence of a certain carver with certain iconographic preferences clearly would impact the nature of choice within gravestone design, as too would the introduction of a new stonecarver into the region. We know only of at least one stonecarver in the 1800-1821 period, for "C.F….sculptor" advertised his wares through the signed Sally Eaton stone dated 1817. [plates 3 and 4] Fluted tulip corners and a large urn prominently flanked by two willow trees heralds a design quite similar to the Greek Revival motif prevalent among Geauga county gravestones and architecture at the time. Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to link this general motif with a specific artist, for the full name and background of this "C.F." carver eluded detection. It is possible that he was a son or relative of the family headed by Gilbert Ferris, born in New Milford, Connecticut and an emigrant to Burton in 1807. In 1827, the Mason charter notes one member C.S. Ferris as belonging to the lodge in Chardon (where, coincidentally, the Sally Eaton stone was laid), and the 1834 record of births and deaths recognizes a Cornelius Ferris as father to a seven-year-old daughter Mary. These references are unconvincing, however, in both their timeframe and their hazy connection to each other. No probate records confirm his existence as a stonecarver. Similar efforts to document Caleb Fowler of Burton, a longtime resident, also failed. Chloe Flemming of Burton, who provided an intriguing lead because her death date (1821) neatly fit the transition of styles in the period, was likewise rejected.

The later period also has at least one representative carver, for another signed stone arises in the John Stearns marker of tiny Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Burton. [see plate 5 and 6] Signed "N.A. Ferris" in 1822, this is a clearly "best work" design, as were most signed stones. What distinguishes it are the non-symmetrical side tympanum carvings (basket and heart) and the somewhat unique corner flutings around the center circle design. [see plate 10] Since in New England and presumably in the Western Reserve, signed stones generally represented a new carver establishing himself within the first several years of practice, this 1822 stone is particularly intriguing for our iconographic shift. We would neatly assume that to be the case here, and thus identify Ferris as responsible for the post-1821 transformation of Geauga county gravestones, except for the stubbornness of the other Geauga county stones in this regard. Ferris' artistry is difficult to place in relation to the regional iconography. Many pre-1822 designs seem consistent with his hand - including the 1818 Hannah Sperry stone, the 1816 Nelly Dayton stone, and the 1822 Emily Gilbert stone. [see plates 7, 8 and 9] Moreover, few post-1822 stones seem to fit him very well, though the 1823 Patty Barnes stone, 1823 Mary Welsh stone, and 1825 Mary Antisdale stone represent a few that might. [see plates 1, 11, and 12] The last is especially intriguing, for it highlights the same, common zigzag design which had preceded Ferris' signature on the Stearns stone. In addition, this Antisdale stone has a bowl overflowing of long leaves as its central image, which would fit comfortably with the growing use of this icon after 1821. Yet the question remains: was Ferris the new carver in 1822, perhaps even the son of "C.F…sculptor," advertising his wares in the old motif and gradually introducing the new? Perhaps, but current evidence can only tantalize with this interpretation, not wholly support it.

Another interpretation that might fit the transition is one that arises from the earlier evidence regarding the "no iconography" stones. In the period from 1800-21, ten of twenty-five stones, or 40%, had no iconography at all. From 1822-1825, seventeen of thirty stones, or 57%, were similarly barren. Perhaps this is not a change of iconography so much as a change away from iconography altogether. And if the debate over the sentimental import of urns-and-willows versus vines-and-leaves (or death's heads versus soul effigies, for that matter) had import, then clearly the rise in stone with no iconography at all might indicate a serious devaluation of the emotional or religious spirit of the day - or, at least of the gravestones. Again, the change is small, but suggestive.

It is also possible that the gravestone buyers were simply making do with what they had available to them. The Joseph Johnson stone would support such a contention. [see plates 13 and 14] This ordinary fieldstone is a curiously incongruous and thus exciting find. When packed with snow, this unsmoothed stone reveals the simple carving of name and lifespan of the man, "Joseph Johnson 1767 - " (1812). A natural reaction might be that this crude stone represents an early time in this frontier land when settlers would have a difficult time, economic or otherwise, in obtaining a more sophisticated, polished stone. Yet the existence of six earlier, polished stones - four in the same cemetery as Johnson's - raises suspicion about such a hypothesis. Money certainly may have played a role, though the case of the wealthy Lole Cook's meager stone seems to indicate at least some problem with equating wealth with stone design. [see plate 15] More convincing evidence suggests, however, that the gravestone was erected upon a sudden, unexpected death for a family unable to purchase a conventional marker at the time. The timeframe of Johnson's death in 1812 supports such an interpretation: the War of 1812 had just begun in the late September of that year, and Johnson was listed as a veteran of that war. Moreover, the location of another stone for Johnson - a polished design in his hometown of Middlefield, adjacent to Burton, and erected after his son Joseph Jr.'s death in 1818 - seems to confirm the suspicion that the 1812 fieldstone was a necessary marker at the time, probably for a casualty of war, but merely was a means of "making do" for his widow and five children. Though it took at least six more years and the death of Joseph Jr. to surrect an appropriate marker, the family took pains to do so when the opportunity arose.

It must also be noted that the timeframes for certain markers are not as they would appear upon the face, thus skewing the alleged interpretive shift in unpredictable ways. Some are obvious, such as the wait at least five years to commemorate Lovisa Hayes's death in March 1816; she shares a dual design stone with her sister, Alma Hayes, who died in October 1821. [see plate 16] For this reason, the stones in this study are routinely dated by the latest death date which appears upon them. The problems occasionally encountered in this less-than-exact science of detection are magnified by the variable timing of gravestone purchases themselves. Sometimes they may have been bought immediately after death, other times it may have been years later, and there are few proven indications of the actual situations involved. The Cornelia Williams stone of 1825 illustrates this problem. .[see plate 17] On the face, it seems a good example of the shift toward less iconography in the period from 1822-1825. Yet this easy interpretation is complicated by the two adjacent Williams family stones of identical design and carving: Mary in 1826 and Sherburn in 1835. [see plate 18] Does this represent a grouped purchase of stones after 1835, or merely a conservation of style over the years? Such a question represents an inherent part of all gravestone studies that cannot be eliminated, but must here be recognized as possible factor in the interpretation of iconographic shift.

One final explanation for the move away from urns-and-willows might come from the deaths themselves. The historical parallel of Nathan Hayward, stonecarver of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, is illustrative. In 1747, a major outbreak of "throat distemper" generated a massive increase in demand for gravestones, overwhelming the supplier and initiating significant changes in iconography. As Peter Benes suggests, "by creating a sudden demand for grave stones, the disaster served as a catalyst in the stylistic development of local gravestone artwork, shaking loose older conventions and introducing new ones." Perhaps rising death rates or increased deaths from population expansion can be implicated in the iconographic transition of Geauga county.

Though no significant epidemics are noted in 1822, sickness in the years of 1821 (remittent fever) and 1823 (county-wide epidemic) might indeed have increased demand for gravestones in sufficient proportion to drive the type of change seen in Massachusetts 75 years earlier. With town populations expanding as rapidly they were, it would not be inconceivable that the local stonecarvers would be highly pressed for service. In fact, it would be difficult to understand how they could not be, unless a new carver had come to the area, which of course itself would explain the transition as attempted above.

Table 4: Death rates in Geauga county,1819-1823

Year	Gravestones analyzed	Compiled accounts
1819	2	6
1820	4	8
1821	4	12
1822	10	18
1823	10	24
1824	5	22

It appears a significant increase did occur in gravestone demand. The gravestones-analyzed index suggests an increase of 250% over the years 1819-21 to 1822-24 which the compiled-accounts index confirms as a 246% increase. Whomever was carving these gravestones therefore would have had to train assistants, take the job up full-time, work three-and-a-half-times as hard, or hope for a new carver to arrive in the area at this moment. Any one of these solutions could effect an iconographic change.

To gather yet another angle to view this question, it may be profitable to move beyond that of iconographic symbolism alone. The physical shape of stones has sometimes been shown in New England to exhibit strong correlation with the symbolism depicted thereupon. For instance, the vast corpus of gravestone studies have suggested that as the urn-and-willow era arose throughout New England at the end of the eighteenth century, the frequency of stones with "shoulder" designs declined precipitously. According to prevailing interpretations, therefore, the secularization of death, the rise of the urn-and-willow motif, and the decline in shoulder designs can all be seen not only as concurrent trends, but as products of the same underlying shift in mortuary ideology.

Again, the Geauga county gravestones do not hold to this pattern. The iconography and physical design of the gravestones are not decoupled here as in New England: 58% of the urn-and-willow designs have shoulders, and 47% of the shoulder designs display urns-and willows. Nor does this diminish after 1821. Though the motifs are shifting, the two remain inextricably linked. Even their popularity ebb at roughly the same time: urns-and-willows in 1822, shoulder designs in 1823.

One important and pointed difference remains, however. Unlike the urn-and-willow motif, stones with shoulder designs exhibit a surprisingly strong correlation with the religious-stones-index:

Table 5: Shoulders and religion in Geauga county gravestones

Stone design	religious	no evidence of religion
Shoulders	8 of 16 (50%)	7 of 39 (18%)

What is the meaning of this? Again recall that in New England gravestone researchers found a decline in the use of shoulders at the same time as the rise of the urn-and-willow motif. This period they also determined to be an era of decreasing religiosity, which seemed most clearly demonstrable in the symbolism of willows and urns. Perhaps it is instead the obverse: the decline in shoulders depicts the secularization process, while the urn-and-willow motif is only the most recognized corollary. At least in Geauga county, this appears a more evidentially sound contention.

Rationales for this unexpected concordance remain unclear. If we were to seek a semiotic analysis on the order of Ludwig or Benes, we might be led meld the Trinitarian aspect of the design - the side shoulders representing the Son and the Holy Ghost, and the large central section representing the Father - with the ministers' sermons or Congregational theology. Or we might reach out to the Deetz-Tashjian example to implicate the material culture of worship and suggest design similarities between these stones and traditional high altar chairs - knobs on the posts and a high middle - as a useful parallel.

Neither of these very speculative, though perhaps "provable," endeavors seem worthwhile. Instead of pointing to a new wrinkle in the dominant historiography, they seem to suggest an error in the overly-simplified construction of gravestone studies. This paper claims the shoulders-religiosity concordance is illustrative of a greater problem in prior gravestone studies: that is, in correlating merely coincidental or loosely-connected events to posit a necessary historical relationship. The seemingly-strong evidence here, explicable through either of two prominent methods of interpretation and reinforced by the general pattern in New England, seems problematic in the same way.

Like the traditional interpretation of gravestone design moving from death's heads (orthodoxy) to soul effigies (revivalism) and then to urns-and-willows (secularization), the transitions between shoulders and secularization may occur simultaneously even across the country and still not be linked in simple coordinate fashion. Taken altogether, the findings in Geauga county point to the error in this presumption: first, in the fact that the urn-and-willow design declined in Geauga county while remaining the prevailing national trend; second, in the decline of urns-and-willows motif at the same time identifications of religiosity fall in the county; third, in the specific inability to link religiosity with iconographic design (urns-and-willows or vines-and-leaves) during this period, either the whole or any part of the period thereof; and fourth, in the strange concordance between shoulders and religiosity running counter to the expected New England pattern. All of these findings reject a facile, one-to-one correspondences between design and meaning: that is, between iconography and religiosity.

This is not to suggest, however, that religion is meaningless within gravestones, or even neutral to their design. For just as religious heritages around the globe are intimately caught up in concerns over death and survival of souls, so too are gravestones one obvious and potential template upon which to express these philosophical wonderings. But intervening between theology and stone is a plenitude of secular "static," and the transmission from one to the other must proceed through this medium with uncertain results. The person who dies, the person who makes the stone, and the person who commissions it: these three represent the bare minimum of human intervention involved in gravestone production. More complex designs of the gravestone experience would also admit the influence of other family members, friends of the family, leaders of the community, and associates of the stonecarver. Certainly beyond human factors lie the material aspects of the experience, including stone availability, quarry costs, gravestone prices, transportation limitations, the extent of conceptual possibilities offered through other media, and more. And finally there is the emotional content of the experience: the bereaved's distress, the artist's frame of mind, and most importantly, the enduring vision with which others will look upon the gravestone as they pass it by, regardless of the iconography. This, after all, is the function of a gravestone, not for the dead but for the memories of the living.

Having thus analyzed and exhausted many of the non-emotional factors in the story of Geauga country gravestones, it becomes necessary to put the personal and communal forces back into the story. Reading backwards then, from the experience to the gravestone, what additional insight to the Geauga county gravestones may be inferred?

That these residents were facing a frontier situation permeates the personal experiences of this period. Avis McFarland is typical of many emigrants in that she was greatly disturbed by the howling wilderness upon her arrival, yet in her case it is suggested as a fatal fear. Her first-night distress over wolves in the distance somehow is implicated in a terrible nosebleed "from the effects of which she never fully recovered," and she died in the winter of 1824. Though her gravestone shows no sign of such troubles [see plate 19], such feelings are better represented in such media as the personal diary of Emily Nash. Emily writes that her father initially repeatedly tells others of his fears about life in Troy. "I will give anyone every cent I am worth if they will set me back to Windsor with my family," she reports him saying. "We cant lie here but there is not geting back to stay here we must live or die."

Theodorus Miller knew first-hand of these fears, and his fortitude surely was tested by the death of his wife Lucretia in January 1818 and then of his seven-month-old daughter in August. The timing of these events suggests the mother may have died in giving birth to this, her third child, and might also explain the naming of this child Lucretia, signifying a mother whose spirit had gone from this world, replaced in the family's life by a newborn daughter. The reaction to this tragedy by Lucretia's husband, children, parents, and siblings may be obscured by the worn, broken gravestone which commemorates their collective deaths, yet alternative sources here amplify the response. [see plate 20] Coincidence or not, religion played an active and visible role in the aftermath, for Lucretia's husband Theodorus, father Stephen Pomeroy, and sister Lydia all joined the first church in Huntsburg in this year, almost certainly in the seven-month interim between the two deaths. It also appears that either Lucretia's father bought the gravestone, or the disposition of his son-in-law was remarkably similar to his own. Stephen Pomeroy was "always cheerful; especially in the darkest hours, looking the bright side. When hunger stared him and his family in the face, he would say, 'Providence will provide.'" Unsurprising, then, is the nearly-buried epitaph of the stone, a religious and optimistic sentiment revealing a communal tone and sympathy: all that can be read are the words "...friends dry your [tears?] .... Christ appears."

Much like the story of Charles Barnes ("Don't feel bad... If I lived to be a man, I would have to die then.") and his father Asahel's refusal to be turned back from the Western Reserve by others calling him "crazy" to emigrate, most settlers recognized the frontier as a place of death and danger, if not by their own cognizance then by the witness of friends. As Matthew Hubbard reported upon his May 1804 departure from Oneida, New York:

We had just given our hands a farewell shake with those friends we left behind, had been admonished that the south shore of Lake Erie was a continuous graveyard, and that six months' exposure would insure a tenantry therein, or a bleaching of our bones on its surface.

Little surprise, then, that as Asa Cowles and Elijah Douglass left New Hartford, Connecticut in 1810 bound for Claridon, Ohio, their preacher would offer a sermon upon the occasion from Exodus 33:15, "If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." The report that the sermons was "looked upon rather in the light of funeral discourses" is similarly unexceptional.

The expectation of death on the frontier is palpable too in the letters between Geauga residents and their loved ones back east. Nabby Cook Hitchcock received many letters, most of which have reference to the future death of either the recipient or writer. Characteristic is a February 8, 1808 missive from her niece Claire Cook, which reads:

Dear Aunt I cannot express the desire I have to see you but I do not expect the pleasure soon if ever but hope and trust that if we never meet in this world we shall meet on that shore where pure enjoyment reigns never to be parted.

Not something to be feared, death here is introduced as a comfort for their separation. The "hope and trust" for reunion resides in death, not life. Similarly, the letter sent by Eliza Smith in 1810 indicates her wish "that we may all be prepared to meet in the mansion of peace where changes & troubles shall forever cease." Ms. Smith is not even a close friend of Mrs. Hitchcock's; she introduces herself in the letter as "a casual friend of short acquaintance." As even casual acquaintances were remarking on the frontier situation, it is hard to imagine divorcing the particular strain of death thoughts from the minds of these frontier residents.

How Geauga county residents may have envisioned their deaths or those of their family and friends was conditioned both by the fears and realities of death. The death in 1804 of Dr. John Miner, for instance, played heavily upon the anxieties of an unprepared death at the hands of the natural elements. Killed in a tornado that knocked three large trees over his house just as he had stepped to the door to assess the danger to his children, Dr. Miner became a symbol of the dangers in Chester, and reportedly affected settlement patterns for years:

One reason for the slow growth of the settlement is doubtless to be found in the severity and frequency of the tornadoes with which the town and vicinity were visited. The death of Dr. Miner from this cause, in the infancy of the settlement, contributed to make these an object of special dread to the residents, and more or less aggravated the fears of others.

As the multiple retellings of the story aver, the small community at the time was greatly involved and indeed personally devastated by the affair. Immediately stepping in to provide shelter and sustenance for the bereaved family, one member proposed dismantling their nascent village over the incident, seeing that it had "produced such a general feeling of discouragement, as threatened entirely to depopulate the town." Though such thoughts of abandonment faded, the memory of Miner's death remained strong. With all the markings of a captivating story now grown legendary, it was reported that Dr. Miner had often told friends that when it came time for him to die, he would prefer to go suddenly. And the person who related this story, Julia Barnes, had not lived in Chester nor in a township within ten miles of the place nor apparently knew Dr. Miner personally. She had not even arrived in Geauga county until 1815, eleven years after the tornado had struck.

As for the realities as opposed to the fears of death in the county, sudden accidents were certainly a major component. Fires, drownings, kettle burns and falling from hay stacks all claimed their victims, each is among the listed causes of death in Geauga county provided in Appendix D. The most striking of these causes seems to have been death by felled trees. Such mishaps spelled doom for Alexander Brown of Hambden in 1811, Asa Wilmot of Chardon in 1814, a Bowers boy of Newbury in 1819 perhaps, and Asa Pettis of Troy in 1823. A felled tree also killed Sylvester Wilcox of Ashtabula county in 1806, hurt Mrs. Simeon Moss of Huntsburg in 1813, incapacitated for life Jeremiah Iles of Burton in the winter of 1813-14, and technically, was responsible for Dr. John Miner's death in 1804. Emily Nash also describes how on November 2, 1825 Nathan Lewis had to have his leg cut off as "it was broken yesterday... Doctor [Erastus] Goodwin sawed off the leg he yelled some when sawing the marrow." And this all because Nathan was, of course, "falling a tree."

Samuel Cook died in another sudden accident. While standing the hole of sandbank being used to create a foundation for the family's new home in 1822, six-year-old Samuel was caught in a cave-in. Although only his head and shoulders were covered, he suffocated to death trying to free himself. As we reflect, then, upon his gravestone with a simple six-stemmed rosette, crude vine, and a medium carved design with shoulder, we might think of what his mother may have felt in looking at the marker. [see plate 21] Susanna, known as "Aunt Suky" by the children in the area, was called "a little peculiar" yet "us children liked to visit her. She was so kind. Sugar was, in her estimation, none too sweet for us, but as we got older we learned that Ephraim [her husband] had to step when she gave the word." The anger that she might understandably have felt - and apparently verbalized - toward her husband over the man-made hazard touches upon one possible component of that reaction; distress over the loss of a dear child might be another; and the memory of Samuel's antics might be yet another. It is to be wondered whom else she might blame for the affair, including herself or any of her other eight children aged two to twenty-one at the time of second-youngest's death, or what her feelings on the move to their new house might later have been. The free moments for Aunt Suky to baske in such thoughts would certainly have been limited, however, by a too-small house filled with other, still-living children and the innumerable responsibilities of a frontier mother. As her brother-in-law, Peter Cook Hitchcock, had written his wife twelve years earlier when two of their children had died:

Reflect that on you depends in great measure the welfare of our only remaining child. Do not give yourself up to melancholy, but reflect that all things are endured by that being who has risen because he loves us and who can do no wrong.

While it is impossible to know whether "Aunt Suky" or husband Ephraim Cook were religious people, the pragmatic need to continue in life surely played some part in the death experience of their son Samuel, if only an unwelcome one.

When seventeen-year-old Nathaniel White of nearby Auburn had died earlier in 1822, Emily Nash recorded it in her diary: "Nathaniel White died to day a young man not married I cannot tell what preparations he had made for death but the Lord deals in justice and mercy to all that fear him." [see plate 22] We learn no more of Nathaniel than the fact that he has no wife (to care for him in sickness? to mourn him?) and will be dealt with "in justice and mercy" so long as he "fears" God, which to Nash is the central question in death. Just a few months earlier, she had written "Nov 4th [1821] the wife of Peter B Beals is ded and beried to day in Burton... she leaves a large circle of friends to mourn her departure from earth although full prepared for death." And she even records of herself on February 6, 1824 "the doctor says ther is but a hairs breath between me and death it is a loud call I do not feel prepared."

The process of dying or, more importantly, dying well was no easy thing. Even Mrs. Daniel Pratt, who enjoyed the special favor of having two ministers preaching at her funeral, had trouble: "August 7 old Mrs Pratt died to day I saw her die it is hard to die."

One who apparently mastered the technique was Mrs. Lucy Phelps Parkman. Her standing the community was found in the welcome others felt in her house, "a home for all comers." More importantly, the process of her death as told by her husband suggests an idealized model:

Hers was a life of sickness, particularly during the last seven years, but yet a life of unceasing industry. The preparations for the hour of her departure, which she saw steadily approaching, stimulated her in the exercise of her remaining powers to be useful to her family, and her last moments presented to her friends a most perfect blending of the concerns of both worlds. To the acute distress which in her last moments she experienced she submitted without a murmur, considering it as the chastening of a Father, whose grievous afflictions are for the best good of His children, in the full belief that He would watch over and take care of her family, and that in His own good time all would meet in a better world.

Might anything be more incongruous with her white, rectangular, no-iconography, plain-inscription gravestone than this description? [see plate 23] A world of life and religious sentimentality lies behind this stone, if evidenced only by her husband's uncritical remembrance of her death. The same "meeting in a better world" foretold in the Hitchcock correspondance rearises here, and the "afflictions for the best good of His children" is echoed by a similar statement by Peter Hitchcock at the time of their children's deaths. Even all these religious sentiments and aspirations for another world, however, do not define the Phelps stone. For inscribed into the experience are the reactions of her husband, who would remarry another woman from New York in 1823, and her daughter Adeline, who openly feared that she was unprepared for the responsibility of caring for the family. Emily Nash addresses this point, and suggests that Adeline's fear is unfounded, for she "is said to be a girl of uncommon beauty and will be sought for a helpmate in early life." Along with a spiritual preparation for death is a consequent re-preparation for life, one commonly fulfilled by the reconstitution of a families or ties to the community through the ritual of marriage.

When Fortyce Burroughs died on August 30, 1822, "five weeks old a prety boy," preparations for his funeral fell into place. [see plates 24 and 25] Once the neighbors had been contacted and a preacher sought out, the body was laid out in the home for the next day's ceremonies. In the sixteen funerals mentioned in the Emily Nash diary, fully eleven of the services were held the following day, normally around midday but sometimes at night. Only two funerals occurred on the same day as death, and three were completed after two days' wait. The reasons for this variance might be many: awaiting a preacher or other family memeber might cause delay, while early preparation, death in the early morning, or concurrent burial of another community member might accelerate the pace.

As the families arrived to sympathize with the Burroughs on the 31st of August, they likely had more on their mind than simply the death itself, or even the family. Uncle Simon Burroughs, Jr. may well have been thinking of his own son's death at age 5 in 1813. Reed had died as the result of a woodtick which "it had been there so long that it was large as a kernal of corn his mother went to work trying to get it out... she tryed to pull it out and the head broke off she could not get it out and inflamation set in and killed the boy." Feelings of blame, guilt and loss similar to those of Samuel Cook's mother (suffocated in sand) may have been likely. The first death of a settler in Troy, though, Reed's death was celebrated by but few neighbors. As with the Joseph Johnson gravestone of 1812, the families had to "make do" with what was available. "Jul 3 [1813] now there is to be a funeral and not manney to attend farther makes a coffin and the people all go to weep with those that weep Mr [Alpheus] Pierce made a prayer and they sang a hymn and went and beried their dead on the farm of Mr Pierce then returned to their home feeling lonesome."

This pattern had begun to change even within a year and a half. As more settlers arrived and the community formed and ministers expanded in number, the practice of funerals grew more fixed. It may have been this type of funeral which Sabrina Nash Burroughs, Fortyce's mother, had in mind during the Fortyce burial, for it was her little brother Edwin who had passed away in December 1814:

December 5 1814 the baby died to day in a fit Mrs John Beals says she wants to have us call him Edwin in memory of a child she beried by that name so we have named him Edwin to please Mrs. Beals we have got a coffin for the child going to have a funeral here in the woods the neighbors came to sympathize with us Mr Pierce was not able to come and make a prayer so old Mr Eldred made a prayer in his room a good prayer Willard Beals had the charge of the funeral he had Alvord Beals take the coffin up on to his horse under his arm and carry it to the grave while Willard and farther and Mother went as mourners they buried it on Mr Pierces farm near Reed Burroughs we miss the little one sureley it lived to be five weeks old he suffered while he lived with those fits he cramped so hard.

Notice particularly the shifting references to Edwin from the impersonal ("they buried it," "it lived to be...,") to the personal, suggesting Emily's difficulty reconciling an unnamed brother in life with the named but still impersonal "it" now gone from the world, part of the difficult negotiation that lays hidden beneath the gravestone experience. The quote as a whole indicates the substantial interplay and interpersonal remembrances in death, the leading roles of neighborly involvement in the funeral experience, and varying empathies for the dead child's troubled existence. The Nash diary thus gives rending insight into the mortuary ideology of the era, supplementing iconography with the experience of death and the community itself to give a more complicated reading of this death and this period.

Finally, by the time of the Fortyce Burroughs funeral in August 1823, funerary rituals had flowered into a more regularized proceeding. A full-time preacher had arrived on the scene by this point, offering stability and an authoritative voice to the funeral gathering. As Emily Nash notes, "I went to the funeral to day Mr Abbott preached the sermon from Romans 2, 4 verse if the young may die the old must." Moreover, the size of funeral crowds had risen, and greater routinization of practice had emerged by this time. Indeed, three days earlier Mr. Abbott had preached another funeral sermon, this one with "a great collection of people" for Asa Pettis along with an eight-year-old son of Mr. Bucks. And the sermon Mr. Abbott had preached on that day? Once again, Romans 2:4. With the expressive form of the funeral sermon itself bound to a standard mold, the common communal observance of death finds amplification here again in stylized form.

One final note for Emily Nash come in her thoughts regarding the Pettis funeral. Though her diary explains it was "a solem day for me... I had respect for Asa Pettis as a well meaning young man," her words cannot divorced from her previous statements. When Asa, romantically interested in Emily, had asked to "keep company" with her in June, her reply was "no sir nothing of the kind." And when she learns of his death on August 26th, she thinks of it in very personal, indeed selfish terms. "I have heard that Erastus Sawyer was married in December to a girl in Cuega [Cuyahoga] county and I hear that Asa Pettis was most killed by the fall of a tree that split his head open so there goes two of my beaus but there is enough left yet for me I think surely." It is only when she attends the funeral and participates in the communal observance of his death that her feelings grow "solem" and she discovers - or uncovers - her "respect for Asa Pettis as a well-meaning young man." The dead project themselves upon the lives and thoughts of the living as much as the living reflect their own attitudes and personalities upon the memories of the dead. Gravestones too are part of this mutual conversation, but one which is missed by their carvings alone.

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Copyright David Burrell, 1996. All rights reserved.
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